From the handouts of several Abe’s recent summer chess camps, I saw more than once: “It is absolutely necessary to analyze of your game”. I guess there are two ways to analyze the game— do it yourself or with other people. When you do it yourself, some assistance, mostly computer software, is needed to point [...]
I was glad Abe was calm and in not a bad mood this raining Saturday. If you follow this blog, you know that he’s been in a slump in chess recently. In order for him to break out of the slump, I made the following plan: 1) He should play more games. 2) He should [...]
About months ago, I pre-ordered the book: Chess Child: The story of Ray Robson, America’s Youngest Grandmaster. I received it two days ago, finished reading it yesterday. It has been long long time since I finish reading a book in one day, not even the book Searching for Bobby Fisher. What a great father-son story. [...]
Yes, the State Scholastic K-8 Chess Championships was last weekend. The day before, last Friday, Abe said, “I don’t want to go to chess tournament this weekend.” “Why?” I asked. “This Saturday, we have a basketball game with the Pacers—the team we lost two weeks ago.” Abe replied. Pacers won Nuggets two weeks ago. It’s [...]
Abe did it again within the same weekend, unfortunately, it’s the bad thing I warned him against many times; He did another thing the third time since he started playing chess, hopefully, it could be a good thing. Part 1 is about the bad thing; part 2 is about the good thing. This past weekend, [...]
Disclaimer: The story was based on what happened yesterday. How could that happen to me? It’s all my fault. My wife was complaining that I always have a problem not be able to get organized. “Do you know you look cumbersome when you drag everything by your hands instead of putting most in you bag?” [...]
On Saturday, Abe and I went to 2009 Illinois Class Championship. More than 60 players showed up. Nice turnout for a Fundraising Tournament. The playing facility was great, here was the hallway, the Christmas light made the tournament like a holiday event. In the afternoon, here came some little kids, they ran and screamed in [...]
I am puzzled by this wonderful proverb. As a parent, I know I should give more freedoms to the kids. “Leave the kids alone!” Is it the right approach to parenting? No. I don’t think so. If we just leave the lamp alone, it may never be lit. So the parents should generate a good [...]
Last weekend, Abe and I went to the national Youth Action 2009 in Oak Brook, IL. About 500 kids competed there, since it is not uncommon to have both parents accompanying one kid, I think maybe more than 1000 people were in the hotel for that event. The picture below shows the playing hall before [...]
PREPARATIONS OF PARENTS On the day (days) before the game 1) Have all chess equipments you have ready, such as sharpen the pencils, if you have bought chess digital clocks, learn how to use it and set it to the time control advised on website for the game. But if you do not have chess [...]
Disclaimer and Introduction This writing is based on the experience of a parent of a scholastic chess player and is not an expert’s extensive list. When my son just start playing in rated scholastic tournament last year, we got many help tips from the chess parents and organizers. I appreciate all the helps we received [...]
About three years ago, once I was roaming in the local library, I found the library would have a class named something like “Chess for Beginners”. So I brought Abe to the class; several kids showed up, along with their parents. The class was very basic, covering how to set the board and how to [...]
Recently I reread a very good article about Josh Waitzkin from Betsy’s blog “Chess Parents and Kids”(It is pity that Betsy left her blog at November, 2008. We would like to see her back). Many of you know Josh was being featured in the movie “Searching for Bobby Fisher”, he was a chess prodigy and [...]
I know it is a sweet day for kids. A lot of candies! Yeah! In addition, it is a sweet day for me too, not because of the candies I could share, but because of the expression “Trick or Treat!”. Last winter break, Abe started to play in rated scholastic chess tournament. He and I [...]
Abe went to his first adult chess tournament about six months ago. The time control was about 60 minutes, all of his previous scholastic tournaments were no more than 30 minutes. So I asked him to slow down and to think before moving. From the paring sheets, I found out almost all players are way [...]
